Countdown to Hometurf: Because I'm Hungry

As I'm writing this week's "Countdown to Hometurf," I'm hungry (as per usual).

Last weekend in Edinburgh, I ran across these multiple times:

I checked with Scottish friends - 'haggis crisps' are not a joke. People eat them.

After that conversation, I decided this week had to be about delicious Memphis food. Obviously this list is not exhaustive, but these are the things I've missed the most right!

1. Chicken tacos from El Porton. If I've spoken with you at all this semester, I've mentioned Mexican food, and thanks to one of other people staying at the Abbey during Holy Week, all I've been thinking about for the last month is eating tacos. Not even good tacos. Totally mediocre tacos from a chain restaurant in Memphis, a city with (let's be real), not-as-awesome-as-Phoenix Mexican food.

But on Thursday, June 13th, I will drive to Highland and Poplar for the lunch special: three chicken tacos, served only with marinated shredded chicken, lettuce, and cheese, and bagged up in a tin with salsa and a huge thing of tortilla chips. It's costs about $5, and was between the office in Binghampton and JP's school. On days I didn't have time to go back to campus for lunch, I ate delicious tacos on the way to the carpool pickup lane, and busted out some queso and the chips for JP's snack when we got home.

2. Veggie burger and potato salad from Trolley Stop Market. The veggie burgers are out of this world and made with whatever fresh vegetables came in and were left over. I haven't had a bad one yet, but the best one was an entirely green burger (the kale and spinach in it made the burger bright green). Organic. Local. Colorful. Delicious. I'm really not sure what more you could ask for when eating a patty of vegetables. 

On a related note, I've been eating mostly vegetarian here, and tried to look for veggie burgers at the grocery store. They didn't have any, but they did have "winter vegetable loaf" and "squash and nut patties." I was feeling adventurous and bought one of each. 

3. Turkey West Coast from Hueys (obviously with sweet tea). Turkey burger, guacamole, tomato, red onion. I've tried to recreate it, and nothing has come quite close to the real deal at Hueys. There's also the added bonus of shooting a toothpick out of a plastic straw until it sticks in the ceiling (if you're a pro), or in someone else's dinner across the room (if you're like my friends when we go).

4. Fresh hummus and pita from Jerusalem Market. Many thanks to my Uncle for finding this grocery store/restaurant combo down on Summer Avenue. They make pita fresh every day to be sold in the grocery store, and will serve up a huge container of hummus next door. You can also pick up a couple pieces of pretty awesome baklava. Is it a five-star restaurant? No. Does it feel like you're grocery shopping on Summer Avenue? Absolutely. You should go there right now. 

5. Citrus Spice tea from Cafe Eclectic. Since last September-ish when I started getting to know people at St. John's UMC, I don't think I've been to Eclectic without seeing a familiar face. While I've never eaten anything bad, or even mediocre there, there is nothing better than a cup of tea a breakfast with some of those lovely ladies.

If you're looking for me this summer, I'll probably be there drinking delicious decaf herbal tea.

5 weeks to Memphis!


Oh! Almost forgot Edinburgh pictures...

Haircuts and Paella

I'm in Edinburgh for the weekend. I love visiting this city. It's like the smaller, Scottish version of London.

We woke up to sunshine and warm(ish) weather, so I spent the majority of the day walking around Princes Street, sitting in gardens looking at all of the blooming tulips, listening to someone play the bagpipes, and wandering through an outdoor food market I accidentally bumped into.

I met a friend I met at Iona and her son for lunch. I discovered that I love Sicilian rice balls (they had goat cheese and leeks in them...there was just no way those were going to be bad). And after we said our goodbyes, I decided that I really, really needed a haircut. This morning, I twisted my bangs and pinned them back for the millionth time this semester. I don't know if it's because it was really awful today in particular, or if being out of Aberdeen (where 90% of women either don't have hair or just go 'wild child' never get it styled) made me realize how awful it's been for  three months, but after passing two salons, I walked into one and got it all chopped off again.

The woman cutting my hot mess hair asked me how short I wanted it, and when the last time I had it cut was. Pixie. December. It took a while to cut it, so we chatted. But in moments that required more attention, she mumbled a little - "You have so much hair. So much...December? So fast...so much hair." 

I have less hair now, which made both of us much happier.

Afterward, I wandered back to the market, and bought some dinner for on the way home. It's moments like that - when I'm holding a tin full of a heaping portion of spiced chicken paella or a crepe overflowing with fruit and custard, meandering down a cobblestone street, with nothing in the world to get done - that I'm glad I took this semester "off" or at least away from Rhodes. I think in a couple months, when I look back, those moments will make trucking through all of those horrible theology lectures and grey days worthwhile.

I head back to Aberdeen tomorrow, but for now, my stomach is full of paella and blueberries, and I have a good book to read. I'll post some pictures when I get back!

Making banana "pancakes"

Sorry. It's another food post...

Just kidding. I'm not sorry.

Yesterday, in a very successful attempt to procrastinate, I did my grocery shopping. It was another weird week - not a bad one, just a weird one - and with the exception of once a month outdoor market, the grocery store is my favorite wandering/decompressing space. Some people like clothes shopping. I like food shopping. 

It was perfect: crazy cheap red lentils, spinach and tomatoes on sale, and a package of 6 pitas for 22 pence (about 35 cents). I also bought bananas, which is something I haven't done since mid-February. Because they serve as the base of almost every vegan milkshake, smoothie, and frozen dessert, and because they're delicious, bananas were a staple in my diet last year. Here though, I had a weird reaction to raw grocery store bananas. I don't have a blender here, so I just stopped buying them. 

Until I found a sugar and grain-free pancake recipe. 

Yep. You read that correctly. Here's the recipe:

1 banana 

1 egg

Mash them together. Cook like a regular pancake.

The end. 

Do those even qualify as pancakes? I don't know. But calling it a 'sugar and grain-free pancake' sounds way tastier than 'banana/egg patty.' Are they as good as regular pancakes? Ehh. Probably not. But I filled mine with Nutella (happy Saturday to me!), and that makes almost anything taste good. 

Nothing else to report here from the "sunniest city in Scotland" except that it hailed, rained, and sleeted yesterday. If it's sunny tomorrow, I'll take some pictures of the botanical garden's flower labyrinth that's sprouted in the last few weeks!

On Dresses and Dancing

At the St. John's UMW retreat last fall, we were asked to reflect on a time we experienced "a new normal" in our lives. "New normals" tend to sneak up on me, and even with lots of time for reflection this semester, there were a few that have slipped in almost unnoticed. 

I’ve had a lot of I don’t ______’s.

I don’t dance.

I don’t twirl.

I don’t giggle.

I don’t wear dresses.

I don’t play games.

You get the idea. Living with abandon is not something I do well, or, if I’m being honest, at all. I am typically extremely calculated. I even try to calculate my moments of abandon…see my former post on control (that paper turned out well – I worried about it without reason, as usual).

Dresses are my new normal. After two months of walking everywhere, eating well, and not being obscenely stressed, none of the pants I brought with me fit. Because the weather has been nice (comparatively), and because pants sizing is confusing here, I've been wearing dresses and cardigans every day to class. I've suddenly become fashionable. Or something closer to fashionable than I have been in years past.

Taking a day off each week to do anything - from nothing at all, to wandering around Aberdeen, to (like today) reading up on research sources - is another new normal. Not eating meat is another. I think I just stopped buying it and didn't notice.

The strangest one yet though, came today. Today is Wednesday, which means that I have no class. It's a weird scheduling thing here - class on Wednesday mornings is rare, and class on Wednesday afternoon does not exist on the timetables. Having made it through the chaos of last week, trudging through a truly awful tutorial last night, and celebrating it with a new friend and ice cream, I was in a particularly good mood today. I spent the day organizing research files, reading through a couple articles on theodicy and trauma, and then eventually, got hungry. I went to the kitchen, turned on some music, and started hacking a sweet potato into cubes.

On my day off, with Macklemore blasting in the kitchen, sweet potatoes cooking in a bath of thai curry paste and coconut milk, and naan warming in the oven, I started to dance. Not a lot. Just a little. Just enough. I danced, and it took me until I was folding spinach into the curry to notice. 

Whoa. When did I start doing that? The question was certainly aimed at the present dancing, but I was also searching my recent memory for when dancing in my kitchen (or at all) had become part of my life.

Cooking Indian food on a tiny stove while dancing to hip-hop/rap, is not my norm, but even as I'm surprised at myself, I am secretly loving this new kitchen dancing reality. 

The curry, by the way, was delicious. 

On Kale and Mystery Broth

I had somewhat of a food love affair last summer, eating as much local food as I could, finding the right balance of what I should and shouldn't eat to keep my body healthy. Going into this "redefining my diet" season, I knew that I didn't ever want to sacrifice flavor when looking for healthy alternatives.

If it didn't taste good, nature almost always had an alternate way to get the same vitamins. Eventually though, I would come around to the foods I thought were awful as I learned about how unbelievable they were. Kale was one of those foods. I still haven't figured out how to cook it well, but I was finally convinced to put it in my breakfast smoothies. Sarah Britton is a Holistic Nutritionist, and a fantastic health food blogger. Here's what convinced me to give kale another try:

First of all, it packs more nutritional punch per calorie than almost any other food on the planet. Seriously. It is crazy-loaded with vitamin K, an essential vitamin for preventing bone fractures, postmenopausal bone loss, calcification of your arteries, and has even been shown to protect against liver and prostate cancer. And because kale is a member of the brassica family (think broccoli, cabbage, collards, and Brussels sprouts) it contains the organosulfur compounds that appear able to lessen the occurrence of a wide variety of cancers, including breast and ovarian cancers. Kale is also excellent source of vitamin A, vitamin C, vitamin B6 and manganese. It is also a very good source of dietary fiber, calcium, copper, vitamin B6, and potassium. This combination of vitamins, minerals, and phytonutrients makes kale a health superstar, for real.

This woman knows her food.

With less time to cook my own food last semester, I fell out of love with my food again, though I kept setting aside recipes for a day I caught a break and could jump back into the kitchen.

Well, I've finally caught a break. In fact, I have more break than anything else.

Sadly, I haven't done a lot of cooking. Every time I walk in the kitchen, the pots, pans, and burners are occupied with the mysterious food of my flatmates. I went to get a bowl of grapes this afternoon and stumbled upon two chicken legs soaking in water and a fascinating pot of yellow liquid. Among the other interesting things I've learned in the last couple of weeks, I've found that nothing kills my appetite like unattended soaking chicken legs in the kitchen.

Which brings me to a new project. I don't know what it is, but bad soup is following me. From the white liquid at dinner with the monks in Three Rivers, to the recent appearance of yellow sludge in my kitchen, to the Scottish winter staple of lentil broth/soup, bad soup is everywhere, and begging for a makeover.

I started tonight with brown rice/red lentil curry - soon with vegetables and broth (as soon as I go to the grocery store...).

If you have any student-friendly (simple and vegetarian), tasty soup recipes, send them this way.

Until then!